The great Apostles, Peter and Paul, so different in temperament and mission, have been honored with a common feast (June 29) since the first half of the fourth century. Peter, the first among the Apostles, and Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, were martyred in Rome, probably around the year 67, during the persecution of the emperor Nero.

The Collect for the Mass for this Solemnity reminds us that it was first through the preaching of Peter and Paul, and indeed all the Apostles, that the Church first received the Faith. This Apostolic Faith is manifested in our day in the celebration of the Church's sacraments, in the communion of prayer and faith in charity, and in the ministry of the Pope and the other bishops.

Reflecting on the place that Peter and Paul hold within the life of the Church, Blessed John Paul II observed, "If the witness of faith and the arduous struggles which the Apostles Peter and Paul had to undertake for the cause of the Gospel are considered in merely human terms, they ended in defeat. In this too, they faithfully followed Christ's example. Indeed, humanly speaking the mission of Christ, who was condemned to death and crucified, ended in defeat.

However, both the Apostles, with their gaze fixed on the Paschal Mystery, did not doubt that precisely what to the eyes of the world seemed a defeat, was in fact the beginning of the fulfillment of God's plan. It was the victory over the forces of evil won first by Christ and then by His disciples through faith. The entire community of the apostolic faith and gives thanks to Christ for the solid rock on which its life and mission are built" (Homily for June 29, 1997).

Collect for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul +

Grant, we pray, O Lord our God,

that we may be sustained by the intercession of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul,

that, as through them you gave your Church the foundations of her heavenly office,

Saturday, June 22, 2013

The question Jesus poses to his closest followers in this
Sunday’s Gospel is one of the most essential in all of Scripture: “Who do you
say that I am?” For many of us today, this question has lost some of its power
to surprise and intrigue us. After all, wasn’t all that settled centuries ago?

If we only want to approach the question of who (or even
what) Jesus is from the perspective of orthodox, historical theology, then the
answer is yes—ecumenical councils and some of the greatest minds of the Early
Church worked to understand and explain Jesus’ relationship to the
Father/Creator, his place within in the Trinity, and the interplay of his human
and divine natures. The Catechism of the
Catholic Church (§423) sums it up in this way:

We believe and confess that
Jesus of Nazareth, born a Jew of a daughter of Israel at Bethlehem at the time
of King Herod the Great and the emperor Caesar Augustus, a carpenter by trade,
who died crucified in Jerusalem under the procurator Pontius Pilate during the
reign of the emperor Tiberius, is the eternal Son of God made man. He 'came
from God' (John 13:3), 'descended from heaven' (Jn 3:13), and 'came in the
flesh' (Jn 4:2). For 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace
and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.
. . and from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace (Jn 1:14, 16).

Beyond this sort of formal inquiry, however, the same
question that Jesus posed to Peter and the other Apostles is being asked of
each of us: “Who do you say that I
am?” At this level, formal doctrines and creedal statements can only form a
foundation or starting point for an answer.

The first generations of Christians came to understand who
Jesus was as they wove together their own experiences of Jesus of Nazareth with
the hopes and expectations of the people of Israel, embodied in the Law and
Prophets. That Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah (which was Peter’s answer, cf.
Luke 9:20) is something that Christians today both take for granted (even if we
don’t fully understand the significance of the title) and easily dismiss
because that Jesus seems too far away
to be accessible or approachable. Jesus, however, provides a sort of
reorientation when he reveals that he is not going to fulfill the expectations
of those who want a messiah who is a source of glory and restored power for Israel.
Rather, he tells them that he “must suffer greatly and be rejected by the
elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day
be raised.” Jesus is Isaiah’s Suffering Servant (ch. 53) and the one of whom
the prophet Zechariah said, “They shall look on him whom they have pierced”
(12:10). But, Jesus says more than this: he does not promise glory to his
followers—he will, instead, die for the redemption of humanity—and anyone who
would follow him would have a share in that redeeming death and renewed life:
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross
daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23).

Christianity is not an idea. Instead, it is the shared,
lived experience of countless people of faith who have come to recognize the
presence of “God among us” in Jesus. Flowing from this is the truth that to
claim the name of Christian, is to profess Christ and follow Christ. To seek to
live a private sort of faith, without demands, is to be something other than a
follower of Jesus—it is to simply be an admirer. As Blessed John Paul II said,
“The correct profession of faith must be accompanied by a correct conduct of
life… From the start, Jesus never concealed this demanding truth from his
disciples” (Homily, June 21, 1998). Death
and life are the legacy of all of us who follow Jesus.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Born in 1568, Aloysius was the son and heir of the powerful Gonzaga family of Castiglione and a prince of the Holy Roman Empire. At an early age he manifested habits of prayer and virtue which formed a strong spiritual foundation for his later life. Sometimes given to excess in his penances, he was nonetheless unrelenting in his desires to please God and see God's will above all things. Feeling called to religious life, he entered into a battle of wills with his father, who refused to allow his son to abdicate his title and the right of succession. However, after years of prayer, sacrifice, and struggle, Aloysius was given the necessary permission by his family to enter the Society of Jesus at Rome. Well-liked by his superiors and confreres, he was an outstanding student and desired to serve in the Society's Asian missions. In the spring of 1591, he contracted the plague after carrying a dying man from the street to a hospital. Aloysius died during the night of June 20-21, after a long and painful illness. He was 23 years old at the time of his death.

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

Honored as a model of virtue, particularly purity, for the young, he was canonized in 1726. In 1729, and again in 1926, Aloysius was proclaimed patron saint of youth and he is also patron of those suffering with HIV/AIDS and their caregivers. The memorial of Saint Aloysius is celebrated on June 21.

Known for his spirit of prayer, simplicity, and humility, Aloysius recognized that God was calling him to a particular way of life when he was still young. The desire to serve God and the Church as a Jesuit priest was the driving force of his life. Although he is often dismissed in our day largely on account of the overly-sentimental portraits of him, he remains a model for those seeking their place in the Church and the world.

Saint Aloysius recognized that God calls each person into a special relationship, entrusting each of us with a unique vocation. To give ourselves wholeheartedly to this vocation is essential. As he reflected, "The pillars of heaven have fallen; who can promise me that I will persevere? The world is now full of iniquity; who shall appease the wrath of the Almighty? Very many priests and religious think but little of their vocation... Such thoughts ought to rouse our lethargy and renew our resolution to do penance and serve God with constancy and sincerity."

Prayer in honor of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga +
O God, giver of heavenly gifts,
who in Saint Aloysius Gonzaga
joined penitence to a wonderful innocence of life,
grant, through his merits and intercession,
that, though we have failed to follow him in innocence,
we may imitate him in penitence.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Taken from the Third Edition of the Roman Missal)

Saturday, June 15, 2013

What was it that prompted the unnamed woman to break social
convention and approach Jesus, doing something as intimate as washing his feet
(with her tears and hair, no less), kissing them, and anointing them with
expensive ointment? (cf. Luke 7:36-8:3) Had she heard him preaching? Was she one of those who had
witnessed his wonders? Saint Luke, who makes those on the fringes of society a
special focus of his gospel, doesn’t give the woman a name, although her
identity is clear: “a woman in the city, who was a sinner.” For Simon “the
Pharisee” and the other guests at that dinner so long ago, who the woman was mattered nothing compared to what she was—a sinner. Her act not only brought on the derision of
the dinner guests—“Who is this woman who would dare touch this man?”—but also
placed Jesus in the position of having to defend her and his own willingness to
receive and forgive her: “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and
what sort of woman this is who is touching him.”

Detail from a window
in Chartres Cathedral

Jesus’ response to Simon’s indictment of the woman is
important. First, it reminds us that the scope of God’s mercy transcends any
sort of restrictions we might place upon our own willingness to forgive.
Second, it places before us our tendency to become anxious, nervous, worrying
people who are, as Henri Nouwen wrote, “caught in the questions of survival:
our own survival, the survival of our church, our country, and our world. Once
these fearful survival questions become the guiding questions of our lives, we
tend to dismiss words spoken from the house of love as unrealistic, romantic,
sentimental, pious, or just useless” (from Jesus:A Gospel). Undoubtedly Simon, Jesus’ host that night, and many others
present had heard Jesus preach love and forgiveness. The presence and actions
of that woman, in that moment, seem to have undone whatever expansion and
openness that might have taken place in the Pharisee’s heart.

Psalm 32 declares, “Blessed is the one whose fault is taken
away, whose sin is covered… to whom the Lord
imputes no guilt, in whose spirit is no guile” (vv. 1-2). Even beyond this,
Sirach reminds us that “to the penitent [God] provides a way back, he
encourages those who are losing hope!” (17:19). These are truths that the woman
in this Gospel passage understood, and Jesus doesn’t deny that she is a sinner.
However, he doesn’t reduce her to her sin or seek to label her. Because, for
love, she acted as she did, she found what she was seeking—a love that would
allow her to love even more.

The labels that we have for others—labels that are based on
difference, fear, anxiety, and our own desire for constancy and security—all
too often deny the basic goodness and humanity in the one we are making an “other.”
And we, as Church people, are often among the first to use labels, particularly
for those whose theological/ecclesiological/philosophical/political outlook
differs from ours. But, as an ancient Syrian preacher observed, “A sinful woman
has proclaimed to us that God’s love has gone forth in search of sinners.” This
is the Good News to which we are dedicated: mercy and grace which are God’s
prerogative without strings attached.

Too often, like Simon, we waste so many wonderful
opportunities by expending our energy trying to protect something we rightly
love (our selves, our families, our church, our homeland) from those we believe
are a threat to our comfort and security. But, Simon’s great fault was the he
forgot that he, too, was in need of forgiveness and that it is Jesus who
forgives sins. Where Simon’s perspective failed him, we are given an opportunity
to live in humility: yes, the woman was a sinner, but so are we all. Just as
God knew her for who she was—by name and as His wondrous creation—God sees us
in the same way and offers us the same mercy, grace, and love.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

In
1928, Myles Connolly published a small novel entitled Mr. Blue. A compliment to G.K. Chesterton’s life of Saint Francis of Assisi and as a sort of anti-Gatsby (Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby had been published three years before), Mr. Blue tells the story of a young
man—Blue himself—who decides to live out the Christian Faith in a serious,
transforming way. Like J. Gatsby, Blue lives a life of extremes, we might even
say of excess, but it is a far cry from the extravagance of the 1920s. Blue’s
love affair with St. Francis’ “Lady Poverty” leads him to live in a packing
crate atop a skyscraper, in mansions, in a Boston lodging house and, finally,
the ward of a public hospital. He works odd jobs and survives on “backdoor
begging.” He prays and he shares his faith with everyone he meets.

Mr. Blue has much to say
to us about how faith in Christ can shape a life, transforming a person’s very
existence into an act of Eucharist—an act of Thanksgiving—that by its very
nature draws others into communion.

Window by Marc Chagall in the
Chapelle du Saint-Sacrament
in Moissac, France

In
the novel, Blue tells the story about the kingdom of the Antichrist: the days
of the “the ecstatic, passionate, beauty-loving, liberty-seeking people had, as
was early predicted, come to a close. The sluggish frigid races had survived.”
In the climax of Blue’s tale of a new world in which even laughter and
curiosity had been forbidden by law, a priest, the last Christian, climbs the
highest tower in a city of metal and, using hosts made from wheat he has grown
himself, offers the last Mass, fulfilling his promise to “bring God back to the
earth.” As the government’s forces prepare to destroy the priest high atop the
tower using planes and bombs, the priest began to repeat the words of Christ as
the Last Super (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26):

One plane is now low over the roof of the tower, so low that the crew can make out the figure of the cross on the priest’s chasuble. A bomb is made ready…

And now the priest comes to the words that shall bring Christ to earth again. His head almost touches the altar: Hoc est enim corpus meum…

The bomb did not drop. No. No. There was a burst of light beside which day itself is dusk. Then a trumpet peal, a single trumpet peal that shook the universe. The sun blew up like a bubble. The stars and planets vanished like sparks. The earth burst asunder… And through this unspeakably luminous new day, through the vault of the sky ribbed with lightning came Christ as he had come after the Resurrection

The
image of a loan priest standing atop a tower in a burned-out world from which
even the most basic expressions of joy, fraternity, and human freedom had been
banned is a powerful one. But, its power lay not in the revolutionary act of
the priest but in the way we are reminded of the expansive power of the
Eucharist.

The
Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord (Corpus Christi) is a day set aside to reflect in a special way on the gift of the Eucharist. But, to
use this celebration only as a time to focus our own individual engagement and devotion with
the Christ who is present—body, blood, soul, and divinity—in the Eucharistic
elements is to limit the scope of this Solemnity and the dynamic of the
Eucharist itself. The mystery of Transubstantiation is, as Fr. James T. O’Connor
notes, “not one wherein the Lord
descends from heavenly glory to "enter" under the appearances of
bread and wine. Rather it is one in which he, not coming down, lifts the
creaturely realities to himself, drawing them up to where he is now with the
Father. He draws them to himself in such a fashion that he subjugates them and
so transforms their own being that it becomes identical with his… By drawing
the reality of all the elements scattered throughout the world unto and into
himself, Jesus maintains his own bodily unity. The elements are changed into
him, not he into them” (from The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist).
In the same way, in our sharing in the Eucharist, an act of communion, we are
brought into the life of Christ and the Church and we are
brought out of ourselves. We are raised up into the expansiveness of the
Eucharist in a way that transcends any personal acts of devotion—we are given a
share in the life of God which is by nature expansive and always oriented to
others. We are reminded of this when, in the account of Jesus feeding the
multitude with only a few fish and loaves, he gives the command: “You feed them!”

And so, we do. We take the gift we have
been given, the life we have been brought into by our act of communion, and we
share that with others. This happens in the Church through the actions of the
priest in the Mass and in our work to provide for the spiritual and physical
needs of those who hunger for their “daily bread”—in what whatever way.

About Me

I am a member of the Society of the Divine Savior (the Salvatorians) and currently serve on the staff of the Milwaukee Catholic Herald and as a regular contributor to Aleteia.org. In addition to my work as a writer and editor, I am also a retreat leader and presenter who is passionate about adult faith formation and am available to lead retreats, classes, and times of reflection for parish groups and others (in both Catholic and non-Catholic parishes and faith communities).

If you are interested in arranging a time of reflection or presentation for your parish, religious community, or prayer group, please contact me at SilasSHenderson(at)gmail(dot)com.